Mind Over Mussels

by Hilary MacLeod

  “To the cookhouse,” she said. “Into the freezer with both of them.”

  Nathan pulled a face.

  “Not on,” he said. “Can’t do that. It’s disrespectful.”

  “It’s our only choice for now. You can’t get across the causeway.”

  “I bet I could.” Nathan eyes sparkled at the challenge.

  “Not with these two you can’t.” Jamieson’s look dared him to defy her. Nathan admired her, but he wasn’t cowed by her.

  “Airlift?” He grinned into the glowering sky.

  “In your dreams,” said Murdo.

  The five carried Lord’s corpse across the shore, stiff as a plank, and laid it down beside Jim MacAdam. Joined in death were the two men who’d had murderous thoughts about each other, ferocious arguments that had broken the peace of summer, their anger now silenced on the patch of shore neither could claim anymore.

  Lord had been felled with a grimace of anger on his face. MacAdam’s showed fear.

  “We’d better see if we can get into the cookhouse before we haul them over there. You stay here,” Jamieson said to Murdo.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Ian.

  “Me, too,” said Hy, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe to get away from death. Maybe to stick to Ian because of Suki – and Jamieson. She wouldn’t – couldn’t – call it jealousy. Ian was a friend. It was just that he had always been – if not exactly hers – well, hers.

  There was a glow seeping out of the hairline crack around the door frame of the cookhouse.

  Jamieson shoved open the unlocked door. Light bulbs, powered by a generator, glowed. There was no electricity anymore, no functioning freezer. None of the stainless steel appliances were working. The once gleaming kitchen was full of spider webs. The white and black ceramic tile floor and counters were dusted with red sand.

  “A grow-op.” Ian pointed to the back of the building, where there was a pond, dug into the earth and surrounded by natural island stone. The cookhouse had been a kitchen and the pond a place to keep lobsters happy and healthy before they were killed and eaten. The last time he and Hy had seen it, there had been a dead man, half-in and half-out of the pond, a lobster exploring his eyes and mouth for food.

  Now there were thirty marijuana plants growing there. With a generator providing light and heat.

  A hydroponic grow-op.

  “Jared,” said Hy. Jared MacPherson, the local thug who owned the cookhouse.

  “But he’s in jail,” said Ian.

  “I bet this is his hand reaching out beyond the cell.”

  At another time, Jamieson would have been thrilled with the discovery of a grow-op. Now, it just complicated things. Could she bring the bodies into another crime scene?

  No. Anyway, the freezer wasn’t working.

  “Out of here.” She ushered Hy and Ian through the door and into the wind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I can do it. I’ve done it plenty of times. Me and Dooley, we challenge each other when the road floods over…” Nathan stopped. He shouldn’t be telling these things to a Mountie.

  Jamieson felt herself weakening. The vehicle was right here, close to the bodies. Two cots inside. Besides, she’d crossed the causeway, hadn’t she? That was before the peak of the storm, but it seemed to be easing off now. How hard could it be? Perhaps she should wait until she was able to communicate with headquarters. But she was impatient with waiting, with obstacles. She wanted to move forward. She could send Murdo along to pick up her uniform. It would be like slipping into her skin again. Jamieson wasn’t a vain woman, but her uniform was a symbol to others, and herself, of her authority. She’d feel in charge, be in charge again. She examined Nathan. He seemed competent. He said he’d done it dozens of times, so why not?

  Nathan had been lying. He’d done it in his all-wheel-drive truck, but never in his “ambulance,” the jerry-rigged camper van almost as old as he was. And, while he and his friend Dooley did challenge each other with causeway crossings when it was flooded over, they’d never done it when it was this bad.

  That’s why it excited him. His eyes were bright, his grin wide, as he took off down the Island Way, the two bodies loaded into the back, and Murdo in the passenger seat, armed with a key to Jamieson’s apartment and instructions to bring back her uniform. It was a maverick way to transport two murder victims to the morgue, but Jamieson couldn’t see any other way. If forensics couldn’t come to her, then she’d go to forensics.

  The worst of the storm had passed, but the winds were still gusting to gale force and long experience told islanders that the surf would be wild for another day or two. Nathan turned on the radio to distract a visibly terrified Murdo, cringing in the seat beside him.

  “RCMP advise against crossing the Campbell causeway. Police warn that it could flood over at the low point where the storm surge took it out two years ago. The entire Shores area is vulnerable in this storm. We could see another storm surge, with the ocean breeching the breakwater and flooding the roadbed.”

  Nathan punched off the radio. “Bloody mainlanders,” he mumbled. The villagers often referred to the rest of the island as the mainland, especially since the unreliability of the causeway had cut them off and made them an island, too.

  “If we get past that,” he pointed at the wave of water engulfing the road ahead, “then it’s clear sailing.”

  “Sailing?” If Murdo’s fingernails weren’t already bitten to the quick – working with Jamieson wasn’t easy – then he’d have been biting them. Instead, he was gnawing the skin around each nail bed.

  Nathan, meantime, was counting waves. It was part of his technique, learned from the movie The Shawshank Redemption. A group of prisoners had counted the seventh wave as the one that would sweep them to freedom. Nathan was counting for a small wave, one that wouldn’t sweep them anywhere, but could be driven through.

  The moment came. Nathan gunned the motor. Murdo shut his eyes tight. The camper slashed across the water-soaked road, sending spray up high on both sides, swerving from one side of the road to the other.

  “Good thing no one’s coming the other way.” Nathan grinned. His eyes were bright with pleasure, his cheeks flushed. His hands gripped the steering wheel. His gaze was confident, straight ahead.

  “Whoaaa,” he shouted and started to laugh as the truck nearly went off the road. Murdo was crouched down as low as he could go. The only thing he could see clearly was the dashboard. He didn’t want to see anything more.

  “That’s it.” Nathan yelled in jubilation. “Hang on.” A wave smacked the side of the vehicle and washed over the hood. And another. And another.

  Nathan was hooting with glee.

  Murdo crouched down in terror.

  It was the longest kilometre of his life.

  When Jamieson returned to the Hall, she found Billy munching on the tray of sandwiches Madeline had brought. Madeline had lost her courage, and had shoved the tray at him when he came in, then disappeared out the door.

  Jamieson dispatched Billy in the cruiser to secure the cookhouse and stand guard over the grow-op, until she decided what to do about it. Wet, worn out, and very nearly fed up, Billy dutifully did as told.

  He was going from one crummy job to another. He was the dogsbody, and still in disgrace – he could tell from the way Jamieson looked at him. He hoped he would be able to resurrect his reputation.

  He would, but it wasn’t going to be guarding marijuana plants. That would prove too much of a temptation.

  With a reluctance that showed in the stiff set of her shoulders, Jamieson had agreed to take a shower at Hy’s house and borrow another change of clothes.

  She allowed herself to feel grateful, as the hot water pelted down on her chilled body. She took a much longer shower than her usual short, disciplined one – luxuriating in the heat of the water, soaping until she was thor
oughly clean, stepping out and wrapping herself in the generous bath towel Hy had provided, wringing out her hair in the sink and wrapping it in a smaller towel.

  She slipped into a fresh pair of jeans and a wool turtleneck. Jamieson never wore jeans. She had nothing against them. She considered them practical and attractive, but had never owned a pair. She thought they looked peculiar on her. They did. Too rough for her smooth, crisp features – and not professional.

  Hy had soup and hot tea waiting in the main room, which was stuffed with antiques, books spilling out of bookshelves, and a long harvest table that doubled as Hy’s office. Her editorial work supplemented her nest egg from the royalties earned on her late mother’s classic book about the back-to-the-land movement, A Life on the Land. It had been written with ink and paper that Hy’s mother had made herself, and illustrated with charcoal from the embers of the woodstove. Recently, renewed interest had sparked a coffee-table version of the classic. It had been a dying mother’s legacy to her daughter.

  Jamieson remembered the story. It had come out when Hy had received a medal of bravery for saving the life of that lobster vigilante last year.

  Jamieson had admired Hy’s pluck. She relaxed. This woman was obviously not a suspect, and might be helpful in finding out who was. She knew everyone in the village, and being from away, wouldn’t be as guarded as other villagers would be. Not as likely to be defensive. Yes, she could use her.

  She sat down and surrendered to the soothing tea, flowing warmth through her.

  “Tell me everything you know about Lord.”

  Hy told Jamieson what she and Ian had googled earlier in the day.

  “Interesting.” Jamieson took notes. “But I can check out those sites myself. I’d like you to tell me about his history here.”

  Suki, thought Hy. Should I tell her?

  Suki was not history here. Not yet, much as Hy would like her to be. She was present, not past. And what did Hy know about her anyway? Jamieson would find out soon enough about Suki.

  Let Ian tell her. Or Suki herself.

  “I think I’ve told you about as much as I know. Owned that land for years I guess.

  It was Abel Mack’s land. Sold at the same time as the land Bullock’s dome is on. I forget the story about that. Abel made a bucket they say. Gus could tell you more about it.”

  “Or Abel?”

  “If you can find him.”

  Jamieson’s look sharpened. Another missing person?

  Hy smiled.

  “Abel’s just one of those people who’s always off somewhere else.”

  Jamieson nodded.

  “Back to Lord.”

  “The land just sat there for years, the dune along the front slowly eroding. Ben Mack says it must have lost ten feet in as many years.”

  “Ben Mack?”

  “Fisherman. Farmer. Abel’s younger brother. He’s the guy who led the protest when the government planned to evacuate The Shores after the storm surge.”

  Jamieson had seen the news coverage. The government had said it couldn’t justify a bridge for such a small population, that fixing the causeway would be only a bandage solution. Moving a few hundred people made a lot more sense.

  Not to Ben Mack, who’d spearheaded a massive protest backed by every resident of The Shores and beyond. The province had caved in. It had established ferry service as “a temporary measure,” and agreed to fix the causeway.

  As it turned out, everything about the route to The Shores had remained temporary.

  “Would Ben know about this land deal?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I think Gus would be your most reliable source.”

  Jamieson nodded.

  “Go on. What else about Lord?”

  “Well, after all those years, he finally came here last summer and began to build. Came back this summer and finished the job. Started sticking up signs preventing people from going down to the shore, just like I said before.”

  “So he could have had lots of enemies.”

  Hy sat down beside Jamieson. “Sure.” She leaned forward. “But no one here who’d kill him.”

  “No one?”

  “Not Jim MacAdam.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, he…he…he’s Jim…and…”

  “Also a hunter.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Guns in his shed.”

  “Lord wasn’t killed with a gun. And Jim’s dead, too.”

  “Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. And there were axes in the shed.”

  Like a terrier, thought Hy, Jamieson was sticking to her conviction that Jim MacAdam had killed Lord, even though now it didn’t make sense.

  “But that would mean – ”

  “Yes. That we’re looking for two killers.”

  That didn’t make sense either. One killer in this tiny village was hard to believe. But two? Hy shook her head.

  “No. They died the same way. Same wound.”

  “You said the wounds looked different.”

  “But I didn’t mean – ”

  “Well, we’ll let forensics figure that out for us. What more can you tell me – about possible suspects?”

  “I think we should go see Gus.”

  Hy didn’t like being the lone focus of Jamieson’s questioning. She didn’t want the communal village finger pointing at her for blaming anyone. Besides, Gus knew everyone. Maybe she could help Jamieson out, and set her straight about Jim MacAdam.

  Ian was grateful to find Suki asleep when he got home. She lay carelessly on the bed, the sheet covering only part of her, her long legs and one breast exposed. He tiptoed through the bedroom, careful not to wake her. Not up to another encounter.

  Not yet. Not ever?

  Had he had his fill so quickly? Was she not the love of his life, or was she just the girl who got away? He hoped she wouldn’t wake up. He wanted to shower, then get on the computer and find out more about Lord and Bullock.

  “Abel never should have sold it. Soon we’ll have them cottages all along the shore. The view won’t be the view anymore. And look what I have to look at,” Gus gestured with her thumb toward the shore.

  “That dome. It was him bought the land, the two chunks.” It sounded like “jonks” when she said it.

  “Bullock?” Jamieson looked up from her notebook with interest.

  “The muscle man. From the Boston States. Paid a good price ’n’ all. Abel’s canny and he knew the value of it. Not the value today, mind. Who would ever have thought lots would go so high? But it was a good price then.”

  “Then?”

  “That was fifteen years ago, not a day less.”

  “And what did he pay?”

  “I couldn’t say. You’d have to ask Abel that, and I’m not sure he could say either. There was so much talk about the price, and Abel was keeping his mouth shut about it, which just made people think he’d made a ton of money. They kep’ throwin’ numbers at him. I think he forgot what he ended up gettin’ for it.”

  “There must be papers.”

  “Happen there are.” Gus flushed. She was the one who kept the accounts. She didn’t like doing it. “The accounts” was a dime-store coiled exercise book, with spotty entries in pencil, mixed with recipes. Their legal documents were safely tucked away somewhere, possibly in a box under the stairs.

  “Anyroad, it was a lot of money, we thought back then. And he paid cash. Where did a fella make that kind of money out of mussels? ’Cause that’s what we thought it was. The kind you eat – if you don’t know any better. Turns out it was that muscle training. Course we all know that now. That’s where his money come from.”

  “Two chunks, you said he bought two chunks of land. His own and Lord’s.”

  Gus nodded her head several times.

  “Yes. He wanted the bit in bet
ween, but that was MacAdam’s. MacAdam said he went after him every year for it. I don’t know why. The fella hadn’t built on his own land, and didn’t until this year.”

  “When did Lord get hold of his piece?”

  “The muscle fella give it him. Just give it him. No money. Abel never could understand that.”

  “When was that?”

  “Mebbe when Mr. Bullock bought it, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Abel that.”

  “And where is he?”

  “I think he’s gone over the road.”

  Her tone indicated that Jamieson would know where “over the road” was. She didn’t, but Gus just added, “He should be around shortly.”

  Hy snorted. If Jamieson expected Abel to be around shortly, she’d be waiting a long time.

  Billy was bored. He hated being stuck here, nursemaid to a hundred thousand dollars worth of marijuana plants. Billy had done the calculation, estimating three thousand dollars per plant once they grew to maturity.

  Billy smoked pot, but he hadn’t since getting this position. He was tempted now. They’d never miss a few leaves. He could dry it at home in the oven.

  He was sitting on one of the blocks of sandstone edging the artificial pond. He reached out a hand to pluck off a stem, but pulled back. What if he were found out? To take his mind off it, he decided to get some fresh air.

  He opened the door, and what he saw made him step out and leave it banging open and shut behind him.

  Gus had been working on a book about the village, containing the names and birth dates of every one of the villagers, whatever she knew about their ancestors, who they were related to and what they’d done in and for this community over a span of nearly two hundred years. She had collected historical highlights – the first car at The Shores, a set of triplets born back in the nineteen-fifties, a bean growing out of a wound in a farm worker’s forehead following a fall in a field during spring planting.

  The “book” was a clutch of mismatched papers, with photographs spilling out of it, pictures of sleighs and horses and buildings that no longer existed, except in the minds of the villagers. Tourists asking for directions would look puzzled when told, “Take a turn right there where the school is.” The helpful villager would point to an empty lot.